


Purple Eyes and Starry Skies

by Rashonom



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Everyone appears at least once (at least that's the plan), M/M, Not Betaed, Ouma is lost and confused, Praying I don't fuck this up LETS GO, Shuichi is precious, THERE'S GONNA BE SO MUCH FLUFF, Tagging as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-04-27 04:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14417235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rashonom/pseuds/Rashonom
Summary: He never understood how you could find someone interesting while knowing nothing about them at all. At least, not before Ouma.





	1. Act One

With a heavy sigh, Saihara dumps the stuffed binder onto his desk and rubs his eyes. It's been a long day full of nothing except the bare normality of his Tuesday routine. He has no classes, and therefore no reason, to show up on campus on Tuesdays, so he always gets up at 10 in the morning way after the birds outside his bedroom window have had their breakfast, has a cup of coffee as his own, then bikes down the road to his uncle's detective agency. It's one of those days where his uncle has business in another town and he's left alone in the office to pour over infidelity cases that start to play out the same way the more he goes through them, as much as he feels like a horrible person for thinking it. Bored out of his mind, Saihara slumps lower into the chair he's been sitting in for hours, exhaling a tired puff of air. From morning till afternoon, he hasn't once moved from his spot next to the blinds. If he were to pull them up, he'd be greeted by the sight of the sun languidly reclining with him in the same slow movement of descent towards the horizon; except Saihara isn't as graceful, so instead he's sliding down to the floor.

Distantly, he reminds himself that there's half an hour left before he has to meet Kaede at their usual place.

The detective squirms until he's firmly planted on the swivel chair before rummaging for his things. Kaede wouldn't appreciate a muttered excuse about his tardiness when the coffee shop is only a ten-minute walk from the agency.

He's just about finished closing up for the afternoon when a loud crash comes from somewhere behind him- Saihara whips around to peer into the darkness. No one stares back.

He wonders if he imagined it- then he wonders how tired he must be to imagine a noise that loud, mind foggy from skimming reports left and right with not even a single break in between. The theory is quickly dismissed when a softer, duller thud follows the first.

Now there's no mistaking it. His eyes dart to the door of the archive. It's the only thing separating him from whatever's making those sounds. Cautiously, he treads with light footsteps, turns the knob slowly, and-

-and starts with furrowed brows at the mess of dark robes on the floor.

"What the...?" Inching closer with none too little precaution, Shuichi sees a mop of purple hair facing away from him. Cardboard boxes with piles and piles of case studies next to the stranger are dented and the general state of the room looks to be hit by a hurricane. There are papers littered on every surface available, on the desks, file holders, office chairs, and even on the lampshade stowed away in the corner. 

"Um, e-excuse me," he clears his throat, "I'm afraid only authorized personnel may be in here. More importantly, we're closing for the day so if you could please..."

Saihara trails off when there's no response. Timidly, he lays a hand in their shoulder, a gesture meant to rouse the other and inform them of his presence. "Are you alright?"

Immediately, the stranger turns and looks up and directly into the detective's eyes with a serene closed-eyed smile.

Saihara hastily jerks back his hand and _screams_.

There's a thick layer of blood- so much blood- running down the boy's face from his forehead that he hadn't noticed until now. Shuichi can see it starting to spread outwards on the floorboard the boy was lying on moments ago, in bold smears and splatters. A light, gleeful chuckle escapes the person in front of him, and with some stumbling and swaying he manages to get his own two feet to hold his weight. He's winded, panting shallowly in breaks between fits of cackling. His gaze is turned towards the floorboards but the rest of his shoulders is arrogant and proud.

All throughout the exchange, the innocent smile hadn't left his features. "Aha! I gave you a good scare, didn't I? I'm reallllllly fine," declares the stranger, locking eyes with the stunned detective. The mischievous glint in his eyes is now clear as day.

He winces, bringing a hand up to his head. "That was a lie."

Surprisingly- or not, depending on how you look at it- the normal reaction to a head injury is what shakes Shuichi from his stupor. He grabs him at the elbow to steady him and together they leave the room, Saihara overwhelmed by a surge of worry and concern for a guy he doesn't know. Once the boy is guided to a chair, Shuichi promises he won't be too long and dashes to the end of the office, frantic to help this person and make sure they're alright. He returns with an armful of first aid supplies that end up scattered next to him on the floor when he kneels in front of the chair. When everything is settled and in proper order, the detective takes a moment to get a good look at the stranger with amethyst eyes that catch the light in a dizzying array of shards of smooth glass, whose purple hair curls in natural tendrils that frame his pale face. Saihara is distinctly aware that there are unassuming streaks of blood on his cheeks, warm under the afternoon sun, and he is not able to look away without admitting that this boy seems as delicate as a paper rose.

"Who are you?" Shuichi asks as he unravels some bandages, keeping his voice soft in case the stranger's ears are sensitive from his nasty fall. "How did you get inside that room in the first place?"

The boy pouts. "Aren't you asking the wrong questions? My my, your poor conversational skills are the reason why there's nobody in the office besides the two of us."

A little taken aback by the poorly-disguised snark in his tone, he makes a face the other barks a laugh at. He worries his lip for the umpteenth time that day, but tries again. "My name is Shuichi Saihara. I'm working here as an apprentice, but one day I'll be able to call myself a proper detective. Just need to graduate first."

The response his introduction garners is only but an exaggerated yawn. He stretches out his arms and legs so obtrusively and pointedly that Saihara has to hold him still to be able to continue disinfecting the wound. Petulantly, the corners of his mouth drag even further down as if in disapproval. "Boo, I didn't ask for your boring life story, Saihara."

The detective bites back the urge to glare, shoveling his bubbling irritation and burying it someplace deep, instead fixing his attention to treating the injury. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't as deep as all the blood made it out to be. As long as it was properly disinfected and kept clean, it was going to be fine. After wiping all the blood from his hands, Shuichi starts to return the supplies to their rightful containers when the uncomfortable silence is broken by a single word.

"Ouma."

It's so soft that Shuichi has to make sure that he heard it at all. "What?"

"Ouma. That's my name." The stranger's- no, Ouma's - face splits into a playful grin. "But whether you believe me of not isn't my concern- I am a liar after all!"

He waits for the other boy provide an answer to his second question but it never comes.

Saihara frowns but says nothing about the blunt confession addressing his dishonesty, already growing fatigued from being with such erratic company. However, the exhaustion is replaced by raw, unfiltered adrenaline when he sees the current time reflected on the glassy face of the wall clock.

"Ouma-kun," calls Shuichi.

The boy stops humming at the sound of his presumed name, his legs still kicking out in front of him from his seat on the chair.

"You should get going now."

"Oho, why in such a rush? Do you really want me out of your sight that bad? And here I thought you wanted to be friends!"

"I know you aren't going to admit what you were doing- or how you even got _into_ the archives room anytime soon, so it's better that you're not here when my uncle gets back. We'll both be in trouble then," he shoots a worried glance at the time and shoulders his half-empty backpack.

Ouma laughs, regarding his arising panic with a brand of amusement that almost looks predatory. His smile is a soft curve of the lips that tells him he knows something that Saihara doesn't, but if anything it isn't unkind.

"I'll be gone before you know it, won't you have any regrets?" He presses jokingly, raising his arms at his sides.

"I will if you don't step outside with me in the next twenty seconds."

Ouma lets out a surprised huff in the face of his stoic deadpan, short, breathy, before settling down into a more subdued smirk. "It's been fun, Shuichi Saihara. Who knows, maybe I'll drop by to send flowers from time to time."

From out of nowhere, he snaps his fingers with a confident flick of the wrist. Shuichi stares at him in undisguised confusion. Three seconds pass, then fifteen, and when it becomes clear that nothing is happening or is going to happen, Ouma snaps his fingers again. The detective doesn't know what he should be waiting for, but whatever it is doesn't follow.

Ouma's reaction is immediate. The easygoing air around him condenses into a heavier atmosphere as his eyes get marginally wider in horror. Saihara recognizes the brand of disbelief and denial barely restrained under his skin as the same stare a particularly slippery fugitive directs at the police when a pair of handcuffs come down on his wrists. For the first time that afternoon, the other boy's expression is undoubtedly genuine to the detective.

"You..." Shuichi pauses, "hit your head harder than I thought you did," he concludes. 

His initial bewilderment fades into concern once more as he took a moment to absorb what exactly had happened there. The conclusion is sound, except one piece of evidence is inconsistent with that convenient answer and by god does it nag him as an itch under his skin, but he uses all his willpower to forcibly push it to the back of his mind to mull over later. Also the fact that his choice of clothing is...out of place, for the lack of a better word.

It takes only a few tense seconds before Ouma's feature smoothen into an artificial calm, superficial and utterly plastic. Slowly and mechanical in movement, Ouma lifts his hands to the back of his head and forces out a stunted chuckle, leaping out of his perch on the seat and spinning in a little circle. It's no mystery why the steps he takes towards the other are wobbly and unstable. "Wahhh, shouldn't have done that..."

"I'm an idiot for thinking you could go home by yourself like this," Shuichi mumbles, silently reprimanding himself for his insensitivity. "Where do you live, Ouma-kun? I'll take you there."

He clasps his hands joyfully, "It's flattering that you want to walk home with me, but there's no need for that! I live far, far away!"

The detective walks out of the office with Ouma thankfully following from behind. He shoots a quick text to Kaede telling her that an urgent matter has suddenly come up and he'll be sure to make it up to her in the future, knowing that the full-blown apology he wants to type would activate her pep-talk mode and she'd end up messaging him paragraph upon paragraph about how it's alright and how he should stop apologizing for events he has no control of.

"Alright, what's your address?"

"My...what?" His face goes entirely blank.

Saihara mentally adds that to the growing list of mysteries the other boy has to offer, absently playing with the keys to the office with one finger. There are gears turning together in his head, each jingle of the keys clinking with every precise passing of a second defined by narrowed concentration, threads of thought spanning out from a central piece, never ending. Is he a madman for what he is about to do? Well, that goes without saying- of course he is.

"Ah...never mind. How a-about you stay at my place for tonight?" Shuichi internally cringes for tumbling over his words when he had meant to sound casual, brushing against the hard rim of his cap to pull it over his head a little more. It's embarrassing to be caught embarrassed, but it's not like he can help it. So much for trying to sound nonchalant, right?

From under the brim of his hat, he can see Ouma peering at him with stars shining in his irises.

He bounces a little in place, not enough to disturb his injury, purple robes shifting in the twilight in deep, rich ruffles and lighter, shimmering tones. "I can't believe what I'm hearing! We only just met, and you're inviting me to live with you already?!"

Gleaming tears gather swimmingly at the ends of his lashes, at the cusp of falling with the slightest movement.

"I knew you valued our connection as much as I do. It's...I-it's just different hearing it like this," Ouma whispers with choked sobs, clutching his chest with strained fingers. Fat, clear lies roll down his cheeks, trails of released emotion properly distorted into an arsenal.

Saihara fidgets, alternating glances between his shoes and the lamppost behind Ouma's head. He can feel the tips of his ears glowing.

Then the tears stop, his face having lost all traces of crying. His voice drops a few tones lower than usual, everything about him switching from vulnerable to dangerous in the blink of an eye. Ouma's mouth distorts into a twisted sharpness.

"No need to look so awkward, Saihara," Ouma steps forward into the detective's space. Shuichi instinctively takes a step back. The smaller boy tilts his head ever so slightly and stares at him with soulless eyes.

"Why gamble your safety to help me out, hmm? You don't know who I am," Ouma continues, a pulsing thrum of unstable energy in his words threatening to consume and overpower his dead and cold exterior. His entire being is vibrating, resounding with sinister intent.

"You could be inviting a thief into your home, you know," by some miracle- or curse, Saihara can't decide- his grin widens even more without tearing his skin, so much that he resembles a rabid wolf baring its canines. Where his eyes were once empty, now there are whispers of addictive insanity.

Saihara's mind is telling him to run, instincts screaming at his legs to move, but pure fear has seized his muscles, cemented his feet to the ground. The presence of the other is overbearing and intimidatingly powerful, a crushing malice that one wouldn't expect coming from a person who looked so delicate. It's gravitational, it's heart-pounding, it's downright terrifying.

"Or even worse- a serial killer."Ouma purrs, raising a finger to his lips, and it makes Shuichi's blood freeze. He darts forward and pulls on the detective's arm- and just like that, the spell is broken.

"Nishishishi, I'm just messing around! Besides," Ouma whispers in a tone smoother than honey, "If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so already.

...

"Kidding! I'm only kidding!"

The detective chuckles nervously, and isn't sure why his legs still take them to his lonely apartment. Half of his brain is yelling that he's obscenely insane, he's finally lost his mind. The other half is stubbornly clinging to Ouma- a mystery all wrapped up in a nice, neat bow in front of him, mocking him and intriguing him in equal parts. He can feel himself waking up, roused from a half-asleep stupor from the mundane, ordinary cases he's assigned to, being grounded, being renewed with vigor.

He knows nothing about Ouma besides his name, but even so he can't just turn away from someone who needs his help. The guy has a head injury and can't walk five feet without being a breath away from getting into a car accident; the shorter boy doesn't strike him as someone who grew up in the countryside, yet he walks around like someone who hasn't been to the city before, peering into every window they go by and almost strolling into passing cars. At this point Shuichi wouldn't dismiss the possibility of him not even having a place of his own. Ouma joked about being a murderer, but that's all it has to be, a joke. It could be that his sense of humor is too dark for his own good, or a temporary effect of hitting his head. Saihara wonders if it's as simple as that or if he lacks self-preservation.

What should have been a short walk to his apartment turns into a bigger affair, with the two of them lulling into a comfortable silence, both lost in thought. He catches Ouma studying him from the corner of his peripherals from time to time, observing something else when Shuichi peers at him directly. He was the one who was throwing threats left and right minutes ago, so why was he more unnerved than him? No, his disposition wouldn't suggest him being scared of the taller; that was a little extreme. He was more... wary? This ridiculous cat-and-mouse game goes on for a long time, with Saihara trying to catch his gaze and Ouma avoiding eye-contact by glancing at the cracked sidewalk, a lone cyclist on his way home, a mailbox, a gathering of stray cats perched on a windowsill, the sky. Saihara wins by pretending to dust off his pinstriped uniform, immediately lifting his head to meet purple quietly staring back, unwavering. A small smile slips by his lips traitorously, and the two boys are giggling and wheezing like old friends, their laughter infectious and easy. 

The pleasant footfalls of their shoes on the asphalt click in a soothing rhythm as the apartment complex finally, finally looms over them. The shadows around them stretch longer in smooth glides across the barks of trees and guard rails, brushing against the walls of alleyways and side streets. He shudders, the evening air gradually getting colder and seeping through his thin frame. Slowly, he pushes the door open; the first thing they are greeted with is a blast of warmth from the building. They make their way up three flights of stairs before Shuichi fishes out his keys again and unlocks the door to his loft. Ouma scuffles the heel of his boot on the doormat, turning it over and examining it just as a foreign curiosity would be. He walks into the apartment with his boots on, passing by the detective who toes off his loafers.

Admittedly, it was unnecessarily spacious for only one person, but it's his parent's money, not his.

It takes a while, but things do get situated. He shows Ouma to his guest bedroom before leaving him briefly to go to his own, returning with a pair of his smallest pajamas that he hopes will fit him. Ouma's been less energetic once they stepped through the front door, and now that he's changed into a fresh gray shirt and black shorts, he hits the mattress without further ado and passes out.

Shuichi closes the bedroom door quietly, thinking. There's no doubt that Ouma's had a long day, between crashing into a stranger's apartment and crashing into the archive's floor. With this in mind, the detective doesn't heat up any food for his spontaneous guest but decides to leave a glass and a pitcher of water on the bedside table next to him anyway, just in case he wakes up thirsty.

Before he retreats for the last time that night, Saihara allows himself a moment to spare and lingers at the threshold of the doorway. The faint glow of the moon filters through the window, creating a peaceful scene before him muted in pale and dark blues. The blankets stir lightly in tune with Ouma's breathing, rustling, a fluttering white in the stillness of the night. A lone raven caws in the calm, heard by none other than the moon, the stars, and the detective.

He shuts the door behind him with a faint click when he leaves. There's still work left to do.


	2. Act 2

"Shuichi," his friend from statistics, Kaito Momota, elbows him lightly, "You with me, bro?"

Saihara immediately straightens his back, the cheap seat of the cafeteria squeaking under his weight. "A-ah, yeah," he stammers.

It's well past the long stretch of morning lectures that he usually gets by in a state of being half awake, but today he found himself nodding off more than normal. He's had his experience being that one guy that zonks off twenty minutes to the endless droning of a professor, but it hasn't been engraved as a habit. Additionally, most of his coherent thoughts that morning revolved around a certain purple-haired boy- theories, facts, lies, _clues_. The detective had tried to piece together all of the evidence he had and find the string that connected each to the other, tried and came up with nothing concrete. A continually shifting enigma with a false answer to any question and a mask for every situation- to him, that's who Ouma is.

He fights gravity to save himself from diving head-first into his bowl of soba and struggles to find the appropriate words to explain to his friend how he landed himself an unexpected roommate who, in the short time he has known him, has gotten _this_ close to dying because of many reasons. That wasn't even the weirdest part at all, considering what his personality and mannerisms are like! Oh, if he was this hopeless now...

Kaito throws him a concerned glance over his lunch. "You look like you didn't get any sleep. Had a hard time putting down another one of your mystery books again?"

"Aha, no..." His short, breathy laugh comes out more like a sigh. "I was up all night doing some research," Saihara yawns.

He looks over his friend’s shoulders, at nothing at particular, then blinks in a futile attempt to get his blurring vision to focus. "Hey, Kaito?" He mumbles, propping his elbow on the table and leaning his drooping face into his palm. Kaito grunts in acknowledgement, twirling a forkful of spaghetti. He stares down at the many scratches and stains on the table, running his fingers absently on the rim of his tray. "Is it stalking if you're looking up personal records on government databases when you weren't asked to do so by a client?"

The astronaut-to-be drops his fork. "Wha-?" In an impressive display of quick thinking, he picks the fork up again and shoves a mouthful of his spaghetti to his lips in what comes off as a tactic to stall the expectation of a reply. He chews in contemplation, eyebrows drawing into slanting lines, swallows, then: "I'm not the Oxford dictionary so I can't tell you anything for certain, but as long as you're doing it out of a sense of responsibility and not because you're a creep, then I think you're in the clear.

"You're a good guy, Shuichi, so I don't have anything to worry about," Kaito finishes, and seemingly content with his conclusion, reaches over the table to knock his cap off his head and ruffle his hair in a gesture both playful and familiar. He lets himself giggle as he pushes Kaito’s hand away from his head, picking up the hat from where it fell beside him and swats his arm with it for good measure.

In all honesty, Shuichi is positively sure that he looks like hell, but if Kaito visibly relaxes and grins when he smiles one of his small, bashful smiles, then his clothes must've not been too rumpled and his face not completely drained of life. "Sorry if I sprang that up on you all of a sudden. It was kinda out of the blue, huh?"

"More than just kinda!"

After lunch break comes to an end, the detective sits through more lectures, the next stretching out longer than the one before it. When an eternity has passed and the last professor ambles out of the auditorium, Shuichi sluggishly makes his commute back home. No matter how many times he tries to fix his hair, the blue, messy bird's nest on his head doesn't relent. It's all in vain, he tells himself, his body all but slumped on the train bench. It's not worth the effort, especially since the day is almost over and only one more person will have to see him look like a mangled toothbrush.

Speaking of, how is Ouma doing? The detective had left the apartment before he had woken up, so hopefully he's awake and feeling better now. That guy's guardian angel deserves to be compensated for all of the hours it spends overtime, if only for the fact that the habitual liar walked away from his accident at the agency- was it an accident?– without a concussion.

Shuichi leans his head on the cool glass of the window, watching the handles attached to the bar overhead clink against each other. Hushed conversations between passengers come and go, but the mechanical hum of the train is a constant vibration he can hear and feel at the back of his skull. A man dressed in a suit and tie crosses his legs, uncrosses them, then crosses them again, grimacing at his phone. There’s a woman in her mid-thirties balancing a hard-bound book on her knees, tracing the words with her eyes eagerly through her round glasses, teal earbuds disappearing into an open handbag. A group of bubbly girls in junior high uniforms stand near the doors, clutching their schoolbags and making funny faces at one of their friends sipping milk tea, trying to get her to laugh while keeping their volume at a respectful level. Not for the first time, Shuichi wonders where these strangers are going and who they are coming home to. He thinks about the families they must have and how their homes probably look so full of life and love, and for the first time in a long time, he is just like these people, with someone to return to at the end of the day. The thought makes him feel a little less lost somehow. Saihara closes his eyes and beams quietly to himself.

Ouma is happily sprawled on the floor of his living room when he opens the front door of his apartment, scrawls and lines of color present on the sheets of papers scattered around the boy. There's a brown crayon in his hand which he uses to doodle away on the crumpled paper before him, and the rest of them- an opened pack of crayons- lie at his elbow. When the hinges of the door creak softly, Ouma lifts his head up from his work and greets his benefactor.

"Welcome back, Sleepy-san! What was your name again...? Was it Shinchi? Or maybe Shumai?" The boy ponders, still dressed in Shuichi's black shorts and gray shirt from the previous night. His hair is even more disheveled than it was yesterday, which is something Shuichi can’t even begin to wrap his head around.

"It's Saihara," he tiredly corrects, running his fingers through his tangled strands. He dumps his book bag on the kitchen island with neither gentility nor force, hearing impish snickering coming from behind him."Nishishi, of course it is! I was lying again; did you really believe I'd forget your name? You're Shuichi Saihara, the boring detective guy!"

"Right," he sighs in resignation. Nevertheless, he finds himself sitting next to Ouma on the floor, checking his bandages. They're newer ones, clean and stark white. The boy, for once, stays put and doesn't make a fuss. He merely remains still, head turned away from the college student and eyes tracing the brown lines of his crayon, leaving fresher streaks on his latest drawing. With nothing else to do after making sure that the bandages are wound securely, he cards his fingers through the other’s hair, trying to smoothen it into a tamer mane.

"What are you drawing, Ouma-kun?" Saihara inquires, carefully withdrawing his hands from the purple locks of his companion.The artwork is crudely drawn, but as a person who is also not artistically-inclined, Shuichi cannot be one to judge. He squints his eyes and tilts his head this way and that, but the drawing still doesn't begin to make more sense than it did before.

"Wouldn't you like to know~," Ouma sings, sticking out his tongue at him.

Apparently he decides that Shuichi isn't worth much of his time, because as soon as he finishes teasing him for a few seconds, he goes back to coloring. His eyes wander over the drawings. There's a drawing of two humanoids walking on a rainbow and another of what he thinks is supposed to be a horse, except that it has way too many legs to be an animal that should have four. Covered by a crayon rendition of the gray moon and the yellow stars is a corner of a paper with graphite smudges, a curious detail when there are no drawings to be seen done in pencil. Gingerly, Saihara pinches the corner and catches a glimpse of-!

"Whoopsie, another draft I forgot to throw out. Don't look at it, Saihara! It's absolute trash!" Ouma leans forward and practically snatches the poor paper out of his hand. He lazily throws it over his head, totally unconcerned about where it ends up landing. The detective drops his hand, scrutinizing the coy, innocent face in front of him for any sort of explanation. Ouma smiles up at him sweetly, but his narrowed eyes tell him to drop the subject.

Shuichi spends the rest of his afternoon sitting next to him, watching Ouma draw. Striking up a conversation successfully without any social hiccups is a skill that Saihara has yet to learn, who is as outgoing as a turtle in its shell on his worse days. It isn't long before the hour he usually prepares dinner rolls by, and it is less of a surprise that he spent a good portion of his hour inwardly debating what to talk about. In the end, he resolves to give it another shot later and slowly gets up, stretches his limbs, then excuses himself to the kitchen.

As he's rolling up his sleeves and taking a pan off the drying rack, his thoughts stray and divert to the paper Ouma had more or less reduced to a crumpled ball. He had only seen it in a rush before it was snatched away in a blink of an eye, but there was no mistaking it.

A detailed map of the city replicated perfectly from the view of Shuichi's guest room window, perfect from down to the last leaf on the maple tree growing between a nearby intersection, was all done in pencil.

He keeps careful watch of the food, but now he proceeds to consider the _whys_. Why pretend to only know how to draw basic shapes when- obviously- he could replicate a subject like a photo? Could it be possible that he wasn't the one who drew it? But, if it was a gift, he wouldn't have thrown it over his shoulder without a second thought. Shuichi quickly glances around his loft, searching for moved objects, perhaps an extra glass next to his sink. Well of course he drew it, it was drawn from the view of this apartment, and there are no signs left behind by another person coming over without his knowledge!

Why does he need a map of the neighborhood in the first place? And why draw it if he had left his laptop that morning? Was Ouma so courteous that he didn’t want to use Shuichi’s laptop without his permission and look up their location on google maps? Now, that last thought is really something else. Shuichi snorts under his breath, because that seems so inherently wrong and unlikely and _not Ouma._

Saihara is by no means a chef, but his cooking skills are way past the stage of burning everything he puts on the pan, so that has to count for something. Three and a half years of living alone gave him more than enough practice to whip up something edible. Once his hands set the two steaming plates of chicken next to him on the marble countertop, Ouma grabs the side of one plate in a rush and disappears into "his" room without a word.

Saihara is only a tiny bit disappointed while he watches the door click with quiet, resounding finality. He had wanted to get to know Ouma better over dinner, seeing as he was probably going to be staying in his place for some time until they work something out. He eats alone, poking and prodding at his food. There's a feeling of emptiness that curls around his ribcage, hollowing out his chest, mocking him with its presence. In all the time he's lived alone, he's never felt lonelier sitting across an empty chair than now; the knowledge that he's not entirely alone in the apartment makes it all the more unbearable. He doesn't realize that he's staring unblinkingly at the burgundy bedroom door until after running out of food to methodologically spoon into his mouth.

To begin to attempt to drive away the unwarranted loneliness that shouldn't even be there, he focuses on what he can do for now. Right! Shuichi picks up his empty plate and pushes his chair in with more force than necessary, but not finding it in himself to care. Where did he put his laptop again?

After valiantly wading in the mountains of paper in the living room, Shuichi fishes it out under a thick layer of more childish doodles. So that he can put his mind to rest as well by doing repetitive tasks that doesn't require a whole lot of brain power, he digs through the heaping piles but doesn't find the map, or any other detailed sketch for that matter. When he’s convinced that there’s nothing else to be learned from the drawings, Shuichi grabs his box of paperclips next to his cups of pens, pencils, and highlighters resting on a shelf and begins to gather and compile the papers into neat stacks that end up sitting on his coffee table. He kind of wants to swipe some of Ouma’s drawings and tack them to the refrigerator door, in the way that his friends’ tell him their artwork was displayed when they were kids and in the way his parents had never done for him, but that’s absolutely ridiculous and more than a little weird, so he doesn’t.

Nesting in the soft cushions of his dark blue couch, he chucks his trusty cap onto the back of a reading chair with practiced aim. The laptop whirs to life in front of him, signaling another night to be spent ensuring that the bags under his eyes never disappear. There's a tiny intrusive voice that coos that if he knew the right questions to ask and Ouma was more open, then this whole ordeal would've been much easier. Saihara cracks his knuckles and dismisses the thought with a light tap to the search browser. Another round of the guessing game is about to begin, and what better way than to start it off with the craziest assumptions?

He doesn’t think about the faint light bleeding from under the guest bedroom door or about the person beyond it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope this was okay. im publishing it much later than i finished it because i wanted to try and make it at least as long as the first chapter. in the end i couldn't think of adding anything important to this, hence why its still lower in word count compared to chapter 1. i shoulve really published this earlier, im really sorry >> i have maybe 50-60% of this fic planned out already (its so easy to think about but its so hard to writ e) anyway, im rambling. see you later!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone !! This is my first fic on ao3 and I'm excited thats its going to be for Saiouma ♥♥♥  
> I plan for this to be a long fic, so let's hope that I actually finish it. I write extremely slowly, so I apologize for that in advance  
> I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing, so feel free to leave constructive criticism in the comments. If you notice any grammatical/spelling mistakes, please point them out so I can go back and fix them
> 
> *cracks knuckles* alright, gonna do this one for the Good Boys


End file.
